Archive for the 'War' category

We Win, They Lose

May 03 2007 Published by under Congress, Government, Legislation, Terrorism, War

Ronald Reagan once described his foreign policy with regard to the Cold War in fairly simple terms – we win, they lose. It’s a simple message that is easy to understand and makes clear our commitment to the outcome.

To be perfectly clear, the Administration has truly bungled a great number of things. The war in Iraq is just one item in a long list that includes the Katrina response, the ongoing mess that is the Justice Department, the Myers nomination, social security reform, immigration, etc., etc. That said, the one thing they have gotten consistently right is their belief that the outcome in Iraq cannot be a withdrawal and surrender of the nation to extremists.

That was our approach to Somalia, and 15 years later it is still a disaster cranking out militant ideology. That was our approach to Afghanistan after the Soviets withdrew and we paid the price in the form of the Taliban and its support for terrorism.

Whether there were terrorists in Iraq prior to our military action there, the fact is there are certainly terrorists there today. Handing them the country as we head out the door is not a viable option from a military standpoint or for the sake of the world my kids will inherit.

Despite my misgivings about much this Administration has done, I stand firmly in the belief that we must not surrender Iraq, we must not allow Congress to usurp the power of the Commander in Chief, and we must not set arbitrary deadlines for a withdrawal simply because “the people” don’t like the way things are going. “The people” look at the world as they see it today. We hire the President and Congress to move us toward a future world. For their jobs, they owe us more than retreat and defeat.

As a result, I am signing onto the petition created at WeWinTheyLose.com. If you would like to join as well, the petition and a simple form to complete are provided below for your use.

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Horrible

Mar 21 2007 Published by under Terrorism, War

Maj. Gen. Michael Barbero, deputy director for regional operations in the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, said adults in a vehicle with two children in the backseat were allowed through a Baghdad checkpoint on Sunday.

The adults then parked next to a market in the Adamiya area of Baghdad, abandoned the vehicle and detonated it with the children still inside, according to the general and another defense official.

“Children in the back seat, lower suspicion, we let it move through,” Barbero said. “They parked the vehicle, the adults run out and detonate it with the children in the back.”

“The brutality and ruthless nature of this enemy hasn’t changed,” Barbero said.

Absolutely unconscionable.

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Irresponsible Selective Perception

Feb 14 2007 Published by under Bloggers, Craziness, Democrats, Politics, Republicans, Technology, Terrorism, The Internet

What constantly amazes me about politics is the ease with which partisans can ignore the worst traits of their own ranks while casting stones at the sins of those on the other side of the aisle. It is appalling the extent to which some will go to make a point, while pretending to be completely ignorant of the atrocities committed in their name.

Take, for instance, Chris Bowers at MyDD. A recent post of his takes issue with the acts of the unhinged right.

Much like the democratic means attempted by conservatives to outlaw abortion, the media pressure against Edwards didn’t work. Unfortunately, the violent threats against Melissa did. Over at Pandagon, Amanda offers a taste of some of the tamer threats she received during the episode, and which it appears she continues to receive. Ultimately, it appears that it was the continuing threat of violence, not any media pressure or caving from the Edwards campaign, that allowed the right-wing to “take scalps” in this whole affair. (emphasis mine)

Well, if you look at McEwan’s post (which Bowers excerpts) what she said was:

There will be some who clamor to claim victory for my resignation, but I caution them that in doing so, they are tacitly accepting responsibility for those who have deluged my blog and my inbox with vitriol and veiled threats.

She received what she considered to be threats. That is, to be sure, absolutely inappropriate. The posts over at Pandagon are atrocious. The venom in them is atrocious.

The trouble is, with few exceptions, none of them, actually threatened violence. They said horrid violent things, and wished all manner of ills on Marcotte, but they weren’t specifically threatening. They wished harm on people simply because they disagreed with their lifestyle. Why does that sound so familiar? Oh wait!

They sounded like the comments of Kos himself. They sounded like the comments of the fringe left (#8 is my favorite example).

Even McEwan, at least, referred to them as veiled threats. Her post not only downplayed the nature of those threats, but also explained that those who had called for her expulsion from Camp Edwards were “tacitly” condoning those who had threatened her.

Well, frankly, that’s just stupid.

Does that mean that anyone who is pro-environment is tacitly endorsing the actions of groups like Earth First when they spike trees to break chain saws and cripple loggers? Hardly.

Does that mean that people who advocate for higher CAFE standards or electric cars are tacitly endorsing the actions of the Earth Liberation Front? Nope.

Bowers (and McEwan to a lesser extent) are guilty of exactly that of which they accuse Republicans – attempting to equate one very reasonable action to the irrational acts of a fringe element. In doing so, they seek to persuade others against the rational act.

For Catholics to oppose the continued employment of Marcotte and McEwan was a perfectly reasonable and legitimate act. Anyone who issued threats, or engaged in fringe behavior should be recognized as the fringe. Those actions are beyond the pale.

Bowers, on the other hand, uses McEwan’s post to engage in the worst possible form of misdirection. Threats against her are bad. Claiming that those threats represent some sort of sustained conscious campaign on behalf of the Republican Party is just ridiculous.

Terrorism and the threat of violence against American citizens remains a key political tool for the American right-wing. This is true both in the sense of conservatives and Republicans trying to scare people into voting for them / justifying their legislative agenda, and in the sense of actual terrorism and threats of violence against Democrats and progressives who stand in their way… physical violence and the threat of physical violence is still successfully being employed as a political tactic against individual progressives in America.

If you want to look at the use of terrorism as a political tool, fine. Do it honestly, however. Any discussion of such violence should recognize the role of the left in actual terrorism. The two examples cited above would be good places to start.

Earth First and the ELF have caused significant damages to businesses that are legally operating just as abortion clinics are. ELF was actually identified as the single greatest domestic terror threat until the attacks of 2001. Does Bowers renounce their actions? If so, why doesn’t he recognize the activity of the fringe left as well as the fringe right?

If he doesn’t reject their actions, and believes that the spiking of trees to prevent legal timber gathering, and the acts of arson and vandalism carried out by ELF are legitimate financial attacks (assuming they don’t hurt of kill anyone), then surely he believes abortion clinic bombings done after hours, when the clinics are empty, would be perfectly legitimate too. Right?

Unfortunately, he doesn’t spread his distaste of violence and threats of it around evenly. I suspect if you scan through the comments on MyDD, you’ll probably find more than a handful of veiled threats against the Bush Administration. Does he denounce all of his readers for the stupid comments of a few? If he did, maybe his claims about the fringe of the Republican Party would ring true, rather than hollow.

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Clinton and NIE

Sep 26 2006 Published by under Congress, Craziness, Democrats, Government, Politics, Republicans, Terrorism, The President, War

The big news of the last two days seems to be the meltdown of Bill Clinton on Fox News Sunday and the “leaked” details of the National Intelligence Estimate. The Hill has a column by Dick Morris (currently unavailable due to server error) indicating Clinton’s behavior was more the rule than the exception and challenging his assertions that he was awake at the wheel.

Why didn’t the CIA and FBI realize the extent of bin Laden’s involvement in terrorism? Because Clinton never took the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center sufficiently seriously. He never visited the site and his only public comment was to caution against “over-reaction.” In his pre-9/11 memoirs, George Stephanopoulos confirms that he and others on the staff saw it as a “failed bombing” and noted that it was far from topic A at the White House. Rather than the full-court press that the first terror attack on American soil deserved, Clinton let the investigation be handled by the FBI on location in New York without making it the national emergency it actually was.

The Washington Times and NY Post react with Condi and further info to discredit the claims Clinton made. (Does anyone care to wager the mainstream media will challenge his claims like this?)

On the NIE front, the Washington Post might as well have issued a special edition with wall-to-wall NIE coverage. E.J. Dionne uses it to bolster his argument that the protesters of today are no ‘hippie radicals’ and the GOP faces trouble in November.

That is why news over the weekend of a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq is especially troublesome for Republican electoral chances. By finding that the war in Iraq has encouraged global terrorism and spawned a new generation of Islamic radicals, the report by 16 government intelligence services undercuts the administration’s central argument that the Iraq war has made the United States safer.

Michael Abramowitz and Jonathan Weisman continue the WaPo NIE highlight reel and cover the Democrats use of the report in their electoral strategy.

Democratic lawmakers yesterday seized on elements of a new classified intelligence assessment as validation of their long-standing position that the Iraq war has been a distraction from the broader war against terrorists, seeing the new study as an opportunity to undermine President Bush’s determined offensive to turn terrorism to political advantage in the midterm elections.

What I find interesting about the Democrat tactic is the fact that they’re arguing the Iraq War is a distraction from terrorism, but ignoring the fact that our presence in Afghanistan – widely perceived to be legitimate by comparison – is also fueling the fire. We’re coming under increasing attack in Afghanistan, and that is an ‘approved’ front in the war on terror.

If the difference between the two is our internal comfort level, someone should let the insurgents know they need to lay off in Kabul because our presence has been self-justified.

The Wall Street Journal probably has the best solution. They suggest the government simply declassify the report – allowing for redaction or summary of sensitive information that would reveal sources or methods.

It’s impossible to know how true this report is, of course, since the NIE itself hasn’t been leaked. The reports are based on what sources claim the NIE says, but we don’t know who those sources are and what motivations they might have. Since their spin coincides rather conveniently with the argument made by Democratic critics of the war, and since this leak has also conveniently sprung in high campaign season, wise readers will be skeptical.

Releasing the NIE is probably the best idea. It’s not like most of what’s in the report would be news to anyone.

The whole debate on the NIE is actually a good case study in how to reduce a problem. The argument seems to be whether the bad guys like us less today than they did before we went into Iraq. They had killed 3,000 Americans in one morning before we went into the Middle East – claiming to still be offended by our efforts in Iraq circa 1991 and our continuing presence in Saudi Arabia – but all of that is lost.

The whole discussion has come down to a debate over “degrees of hate”. It’s kind of stupid if you think about it. Does it matter how much they hate us? If they were flying planes into buildings before they really, really hated us, doesn’t that tell us that we are even more justified in trying to eradicate the threat?

I think it does.

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Honesty

Aug 31 2006 Published by under Politics, Terrorism, The President, War

WarPoliticsThe War on Terror deserves serious discussion. There is a worthwhile debate over the method by which we fight this war, but both parties seem to be ignoring that debate in favor of sound bites.

There is a dichotomy between two camps with differing views of America. One sees America as a country of and for itself, which was attacked without provocation by a hidden enemy. To respond to that requires firm resolve and an unshakable belief that what we’re doing is right, even if we’re doing it wrong.

The other side sees America as the progenitor of its attackers. Our foreign policy choices have bred anger in our attackers and we must address our own failings to stave off their assault. To them, the war in Iraq is yet another example of the failed foreign policy that has led to our current situation. To fight terrorism, they disconnect those who oppose and attack us in Iraq from those that oppose and attack us in New York.

Serious Americans recognize that there is a degree of truth to both arguments and our cause is not helped by both sides marginalizing the other’s beliefs. Our cause is also not helped by talking points that over-simplify the world.

The President, yesterday, broke out just such a talking point.

“Iraq is the central front in this war on terror,” he said. “If we leave the streets of Baghdad before the job is done we will have to face the terrorists in our own cities. We will stay the course. We will help this young Iraqi democracy succeed and victory in Iraq will be a major ideological triumph in the struggle of the 21st century. I firmly believe we’ll succeed.”

This is, to say the least, ridiculous. Does anyone believe the peaceful handover of Baghdad to the Iraqi people will end the worldwide scourge of terror? There was no war in Iraq when we were attacked in 2001. There was no war in Iraq when we were attacked in 1993. To claim that finishing the mission in Iraq will somehow guarantee we are not attacked stateside is a specious claim at best and laughably ignorant at worst.

A serious discussion needs to take place, but the nature of our Attention Deficit Media prevents that. Comments like these also do little to advance that agenda.

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